Someone Bleached My Robes
by TwinkleMae1991
Summary: A wizard healer happens to fall victim to an attack by an Arrancar out of the blue. From there, she finds out secrets about her past, what it's like to be different shades of human... and a possible love? on hold, possible rewrite in the distant future
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: The Graveyard**

I went to an old graveyard in the outskirts of London. I'd done some research and wanted to visit the bones myself to see where their journals actually took place, to walk on the same ground, the same road, to see the same sunsets, and the same faces descended through the generations. It was almost 4 and the sun hadn't shown all day, just misty rain since I stepped outside my hotel room. It took me 2 hours of searching to finally find my families' small corner of the old graveyard at the very edge, next to the trees that surrounded everything. I cleared off my great grandfathers' headstone, felt the old groove of the letters etched into the rock, and placed the single daisy above it. His was the only journal I could get my hands on, his beautiful script eloquently rippling over every page about the towns folk and his own family. His sisters lay right next to him and his young wife was buried in the same tomb. Their children had moved to America but kept with them their fathers' journal. The tattered bound bunch of leather and paper floated down to me, the genealogy fanatic.

I placed the old notebook on the stone bench next to me. I took a deep breath of the fresh June air feeling calm float through my lungs. I knew looking for answers in a place like this would never work, that those specific answers had to come from inside myself. However, retreating to a place like this certainly put my mind at ease from all the bandages, pencils, and complaining patients. Here, I hoped I would be able to calm down enough to find myself through the past of my blood.

Slowly, the calm began to be polluted with another feeling. Like decay and dust seeping through the ground from the coffins of all the dead surrounding me. 'Well, it is a graveyard. Weird things are said to happen in places like this.' I told myself trying to reestablish the calm I had embraced just seconds before. The journal next to me flipped open of it's own accord and it's pages started turning rapidly. I immediately shot up and started running over the squishy grass in any direction not consumed by graves. Toward the forest seemed to be my only option, and as the trees got closer the decay was replaced with a forboding sort of dread. Beyond fear. Quite suddenly the pit of my stomach dropped clear out of reach and I collapsed on the ground, hardly able to breath.

A blurry figure stepped out from behind a tree. I must have knocked my glasses off because I couldn't make out so much as a nose or eye. I tried to reach around to find them in the grass, but I couldn't move my limbs. The figure's breathing was calm and slow as it took a deep breath of the air I so monstrously needed. His steps crept close to me with a low chuckle in the sole of his shoes. He was so close, I could taste the terror dripping from my heart. He grabbed my left shoulder and with one hand lifted me off the ground and hung me limply to his face, taking a big swig of air.

"You smell absolutely wonderful," his low metallic voice sounded like a robot songbird, the fake twang hidden, but obvious enough to make my brain scream at it's limbs to do anything. I tried to scream, but only a whimper managed to squeeze through my collapsed throat.

"Put her down. Now." A welcome voice came from the edge of the forest nearly shattering the paralysis consuming my entire body. Suddenly my suspension ended and, like a rag doll, I crumpled to the ground, my short dark hair falling across my paper-white face. I could make out more clearly the figure moving away from me. He was wearing an odd white outfit with ridiculous boots and black hair that fell just past his shoulders in strait, obnoxious pieces. I wished my hair would do that.

"You are much better than that human, I must confess, Soul Reaper. I thought I felt something tasty here, but mistakenly assumed it was that trash over there. You shall have the honor of being my next meal, of making me more powerful than I already am."

"You talk pretty big for an Arrancar. I am the Lieutenant of Squad 6 of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads." That's when I saw him, his outline was still a little shaky, but his red hair and black attire were etched into my memory forever. Or, at least for the next few minutes of my life. The Court Guard whipped out a sword from out of no where and went at hacking Mr. Boots to pieces. However, before he could even land a blow, Boots whipped out another sword and it became impossible to breath. I closed my eyes, my head swimming in molasses.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the pressure on my lungs almost evaporated. Gasping, I got to my feet. I saw the Court Guard standing 3 yards away from me with his back to me. I ran toward him, tears streaming down my face. He turned toward my footsteps just as I collided with him.

"You saved my life, sir. How can I-" Before I could finish thanking him, he fell to the ground. It was then that I saw the blood covering his torso along with several deep wounds. I put his arm round my shoulder and convinced him to walk with me.

"How can you-" he wheezed but I shushed him and told him to concentrate on getting to my rental car. I cast a spell on the seat that would keep the blood from being absorbed into any part of the car. I ran back for the journal which was closed and bound once again. If not for the dieing swordsman in my car, I would have thought I'd imagined it all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: The Guard**

"I have to-" He tried to talk again, but more color drained from his face.

"You have to conserve your strength. I am a trained healer. I will fix you up good as new in a few days, provided you don't die before we get to my room. We're not safe until we get there. Focus on breathing and staying awake, OK?" Thankfully my hotel was only two blocks from the graveyard and my parking spot was right next to the door. I fumbled around for the key card ''Muggles and their stupid keys'' I mumbled after giving up and whipping out my wand again.

The halls were completely empty, so I took the elevator to the 3rd floor, crossed a hall and inserted my newly found key card into the door. I put the poor man on my bed and immediately began working to stop the bleeding.

I ripped open his shirt to assess the gashes, then lowered my palms to them while muttering incantations under my breath. A glowing orange substance poured from my hands onto the wounds, filling them and sealing them. He winced from the sting.

"It's important that you move as less as possible or it will hurt more." Satisfied with a faint nod, I turned to my roll of bandages hovering eagerly at my elbow as I worked, "Would you please secure everything in place for me? I would be very grateful to you.." It sprang into action like it always did, managing to wrap around my patient like water, but hold fast like iron. I gave a sigh of relief when the glowing dimmed and disappeared quickly. That meant there was no infection to treat. I turned my attention to the cut across his forehead, which was not as serious, but would take more care to lessen the scar. I pulled out a bottle of green skin-re-growth and rubbed it over the cut carefully, watching in wonder as it sank into the wound and healed it in seconds. That was my favorite feeling. Immediate results right before my eyes. I smiled.

"What- How-" He stared at me, terrified.

"Drink this." I handed him a glass of blood replenisher which he eyed for only a second, not really wanting to know.

"I have to get back to my group, they will wonder where I am." He finally got out a complete sentence which meant that the medicine on his wounds was working.

"Right now you are going to sleep. Your friends will find you eventually. I promise, you will be safe here, there's enough security spells to keep Voldemort himself out.

"A convenience store?"

"What? No. Never mind. Just sleep. What I put on you will heal your wounds really fast, but it will also take massive amounts of energy from you too." I took a nutrition patch from the cart that had wheeled helpfully next to me and placed it on the healthy skin closest to his ruptured stomach.

"What's that?"

"A nutrition patch. You can't eat anything for a few hours while your stomach heals and stabilizes. Until then, you will need a new patch every hour and then after you start eating, every 3 hours. The orange sterilizes it and speeds regeneration while the bandages keep everything in place so you can't rip anything open. So, if you don't stay really still, the bandages tighten to keep you still and it will hurt. Very bad. Now, sleep is your first task." He attempted to speak again, but I hushed him. Looking slightly offended, he submitted and closed his eyes. I made sure to wait until his features relaxed to deem asleep. I carefully washed my hands, cleaned my utensils, thanked all my tools for their assistance, and headed for the bathroom.

After a long, hot shower, I grabbed the towel waiting at my side, slowly pulled on the clothes floating at my various sides. In long blue and white polka-dot pants and a light green T-Shirt, I walked out of the bathroom. My dirty clothes basket floated helpfully toward me, asking for my blood soiled clothes. A hair brush soared through the air, aiming for my head. I caught it, thanking my basket. I brushed my teeth and my hair with their respective brushes and walked over to my bed at the center of the room.

"Oh yea," I breathed. Sitting on the side of the bed, I leaned over to wake up the Guard (gently, incase he jumped) "Sorry to wake you, but do you mind if I sleep over here.?"

"What?" he asked groggily.

I smiled, "This is the only bed, I could make a cot, but I'm exhausted, can I slide you over a little so I can sleep on this side, since it's a double?"

"Mm" he mumbled and was instantly asleep again. I stroked the blanket which lay under him and whispered a request to gently move him a foot to the left. Immediately after the words fell off my lips, the blanket rippled to life and he slid exactly twelve inches. I lay on the right side, accompanied by a small blanket and drifted off.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Imposter**

I was only asleep for half an hour when a knock woke me. I sat up, wondering who it could be, but I could feel that unwelcome forboding presence near me. I knew who ever it was, wasn't coming in. I went to the door quietly and peered through eye hole. Sure enough, it was a Death Eater disguised as room service.

"We won't be needing your services today, thank you!" I called through the door.

"Please, Miss, don't be silly." She tried to open the door, but I cast a rather taxing spell and the whole room shifted up like an elevator to the 36th floor. The Guard, who had woken, gasped and looked very confused. I surely would get in lots of trouble for doing all the magic I had around him, though I couldn't be a normal muggle because I hadn't gotten anything from the ministry yet. The room started tilting, I had lost my focus. As we came to a halt at floor 36, I put up a glimmer spell so no one would see a room floating 30 feet above a hotel. I stood at the end of the room, looking at all of my surroundings.

"Don't worry," I said sweetly and confidently, "I know how that Death Eater found us, and I assure you, it won't happen again." I looked around again, wondering where the spy was.

"What's a De Theater?"

Suddenly the journal I'd left on the counter flew at my head. I ducked, startled. It landed on the floor after thudding into the wall right behind me. The leather latch binding it snapped off and the pages rustled open, glowing with a weird yellow light. Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped, and the book lay open to the last entry. I thought about how the journal had been with me since I got it, wondering suspiciously if it was cursed. It had been there in the graveyard today when I was attacked, and many times before when I had been attacked by numerous Death Eaters. Something didn't add up though. I had never gotten a tainted feeling from it, and it had never acted possessed before today when I was at the grave of it's owner. I thought it probably had more to do with that than any Death Eater. Even so, I didn't want the spy in my room to witness anything else. I looked once more around the room, leaving the journal on the floor and making sure to distance myself from it incase it tried to make a break for my face again.

"Now, which one of you can I not trust?" I said whirling all the animated objects in a large circle around me. I looked at each one with my piercing glance to see which one had a countenance more than what I had bestowed upon it. Within seconds I found the traitor and whirled all the objects back to their spot as they all sighed in relief. "Accio Spy." I muttered in a low, dangerous voice. The Phone book next to the telephone present in all the hotel rooms flew into my hands. On the front cover, I saw a small sketch of an ear in the lower left corner. That is how she had found my room. Stupid Death Eaters, why can't they just leave me alone? Just because Uncle Gus is one, I don't understand what that has to do with me. We're not even blood. He married mom's sister. Ever since last year when that Potter kid came back with the port-key-trophy claiming Voldemort had come back, they've been after us. Wendy and me. I miss her. She's off being the smart wonderful person she is. While I'm here. With this stupid phone book. A tear formed of it's own accord, sliding down my cheek.

"Leave me alone!" I mumbled shakily through my clenched teeth. The book started smoking then burst into flames in my hands. I held it in my gaze until it was nothing but ashes. All I could do was stand there, still fuming at the ridiculousness of the war between Wizards. And for what? To kill the innocent? What sort of twisted man really wants that? Surely that's not his main motive. And by what means does it involve me? Why should it? Whatever. I stand for those who are innocent, don't I? I stand for those who have died and who still stand fighting. I stand for those who cannot defend themselves, for those too wounded to fight. I can be the best Healer in the world, and not charge anything for my services. Why should I need to? I could make enough with my Art to get by. Who needs a big fancy house? It's all just more someone can take away from you.

I looked at the old yellow paged journal on the floor. Curiosity once again crept into my mind as I walked over to it, all thought of the Guard long gone. I knelt down next to it and read the last entry from his death bed.

I seal this record of my life and thoughts to my wonderful children. To them for taking care of me in my ageing years, and for understanding when I was only trying to take care of them. I wish for them to forgive me of my shortcomings toward them, and hope that they will act upon what I have taught them. I give my blessing to them and their posterity, whom I consider my children also. I bless this record to find it's keepers well, that no ill-will shall come upon them and that I may protect them and give them guidance even in death. This is my final goodbye for my time is on the setting of the sun. I say these things, not to bring tears, but to shed light unto all who view my words for what they are.

**This is my first publishing and I've been on this site... 3 days? ...so I guess you review stuff? :) Let me know if you like it and would like me to continue to post. I have many posts ready but I don't know how you all will like it. Happy Reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: The Ring of Power (hehe)**

"I don't understand, this is just his last entry, what is so important about it?" I said out loud more to myself than to any other listening party. The script on the right didn't seem to match the rest of the journal. For the most part, it was just day by day descriptions, nothing really important. It did give precious details about his life that really paint a picture to who he was and his personality, but other than that, there was nothing truly profound in it. I had only read the last page once, thinking it was just some goodbye letter to his family. Now that I thought about it's incongruity though, it doesn't make any sense to put it there. And leave the last page blank. Suddenly I felt the same calm I had in the graveyard creep through my limbs into the core of my body. With that, scroll matching the rest of the writing in the book worked it's way across the blank left page and the last page in the book.

With love and guidance,

Jonathan Edward Irvin

Below his signature, a ring appeared. It was small, a thin silver loop with a simple yellow crystal imbedded in elegant silver that resembled the hands of the sun but were crooked instead of straight. I could feel the atmosphere change more like it had earlier, but without all the anxiety. It was a familiar feeling, somehow I was unafraid. I picked up the ring and slipped it onto my right ring finger and looked back at the journal. While I had been inspecting the ring, more script had appeared.

This ring will offer protection and this book will guide you though the beginning of your new life when you are ready. You will find that things have changed.

With that the pages fluttered and the book shut, latching itself closed again. It looked like nothing had ever happened, only the strange ring on my finger lived as testimony of what happened. As I stood, I felt the impact of the heavy spells I had cast leaking the energy from me. Putting a temporary suspension on part of a building was not something ordinarily done by one wizard because it was very taxing on the energy held inside a person. The usage of that energy is dangerous, because it is the same energy that powers the heart and lungs. I ran my fingers through my hair that was still damp from showering nearly an hour and a half ago. Looking up I jumped at the sight of the bloody guard still laying on my bed. I had completely forgotten about him and was still surprised to see him awake and staring at me, although I couldn't blame him.

I shuffled over to him, carefully took off his nutrition patch and replaced it with a new one. Then I took another triangular patch off the cart and placed it just above his belly button.

"This is a Bioconverter Patch," I said when I noticed him raise an eyebrow at it. "Since your injuries are deep, and medicine can only get you so far, you won't be able to get up to go to the rest room, and I know you just saved my life and stuff, but I really don't like the idea of cleaning you. No offense. So this patch will convert the waste created in your body to reusable energy for your body to use to heal you. Unfortunately, it will only go through this cycle a few times before it is completely unusable. Hopefully, by then you will be able to get up and move around." I walked around the bed and climbed back onto it, pulling my blanket over my feet.

"W-what are you?"

"Tired..."

The birds cut through my sleep like a Tasmanian Devil through a brick wall. I stretched reluctantly, not wanting to wake up. As usual, I rolled over trying to block the birds out, however what I ran into was as unusual as they come. My eyes snapped open and the first thing I saw was the scariest man covered in dried blood and bandages staring right at me with big brown eyes. To my embarrassment, I shrieked and fell off the bed backwards.

It was then I noticed the temperature in the room about five degrees colder than it should have been. I looked out the window to see the room had lost about 3 feet in height since I had been asleep. I dismissed it, I would just need to be more careful not to let it drop any more than that.

I stood up, rubbing the sleep from my red face, yawning. I grabbed my jacket and pulled it on.

"Thank you for all you have done, but I'm feeling better, I should go." I walked over to him and put my wand to his bandages.

"Let's see," I said as they turned transparent. They had shown considerable progress for a couple hours of sleep. It was more than any book I'd read so far, which was somewhat normal with me, but there was something peculiar about them. Even so, he was definitely not going anywhere. "I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to stay put for a little while longer. Your wounds have only healed about 20 percent in the last ten hours." I put my wand back in my jacket pocket.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that you will be here for another day at least, but, we can clear off some of these bandages." At my words, the bandages sprang into action removing the excess materials and replacing them with fresh wrap.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: The Introductions**

"You can sit up if you want to now, and it looks like your stomach is food worthy, are you hungry?" I walked over to my suitcase and pulled out a box of my favorite cereal and walked over to the counter and poured it into two bowls I had conjured up. "Would you like some Pumpkin Juice?"

"Uh, sure." I put a hover spell on his bowl and glass and floated it in front of him. "This isn't going to fly toward my head or burst into flame is it?" he asked, eyeing it warily.

"It shouldn't." I put the same spell on my own and sat next to him on my bed.

"Thank you for everything, uh-"

"Andrea. I'm Andrea Irvin, seventh year student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am studying to be a healer, and I am here researching family names."

"I am Renji Abarai, a Soul Reaper. I am the Lieutenant to the 6th of the 13 Court Guard Squads. Aren't Witches supposed to wear pointy hats or something?"

"Yea, naturally I'm uglier than sin, but my stylist gave me tips on hair care and every Wednesday a bunch of us get together and sacrifice children to maintain our youth."

"No, I think you got the hair right." I'd forgotten I still had bed hair from my shower last night.

"You know, I could just ask these bandages to politely strangle you," I said with a sticky sweet tone in my voice.

"I think I'll pass."

"That's what I thought. So what does a Soul Reaper do?"

"It is a Soul Reaper's responsibility to protect souls and the Soul Society, and to grant souls passage into the Soul Society."

"So you guide souls to their afterlife."  
"In not so many words, yes."

"Does that include creepy men with an ancient fashion sense?"

"What? No, I mean, what are you talking about?"

"Yesterday, that man you saved me from."  
"Oh, that's not a man. He's an Arrancar. They are Hollows, well, thousands of Hollow really. It's all a bit complicated, but he isn't human, he's-"

"Hollow?"

"A Hollow is a soul that was never brought to the Soul Society by a Soul Reaper and was either consumed by a bad emotion or turned into a Hollow by another Hollow."

"That, Arrancar? Why was he in the graveyard?"  
"There was an elevation in Spiritual Pressure detected in that area just before the Arrancar showed up. However, judging by the lack of Pressure from you, I don't think that's what brought him here, but it's anyone's guess as to what did."

"Yea, but you defeated him right? So we're safe."  
"No, no we're not. That was only one of many, and that's not even counting the less powerful ones. He was relatively weak compared to the top ten Espada."

"OK, so we're not safe, I'll just keep this glimmer spell up then, it masks anything. We are perfectly undetectably invisible to everyone who doesn't know we're here." I smiled, proud of myself for making such a wonderful spell even though I'm only a 7th year. I had spent lots of free time researching and practicing shield spells to protect myself in dangerous situations.

"Yea, but I have to get back as soon as possible. Everyone will think I died and hold a funeral for me, then will raise all sorts of jokes when I get back."

"Well, you saved my life, the least I could do is heal your injuries. Plus, if I hadn't, you would have died."  
"For that I thank you, but I really need to contact my Squad to tell them I am OK. They will probably want to transport me to Squad 4 to receive treatment." His comment, no matter how harmless it was intended, stung a little. I don't even know why it should have mattered, but it made me feel like he didn't think my work was good enough.

"How do you reach them?" I asked, not wanting him to catch the depreciated tone in my voice.

"It must have fallen on the ground when I was fighting, it should still be out by the graveyard." He made a move to get up, but I stopped him.

"I can't let you out there like this. Especially with Death Eaters out there. I can't even put this room back right now."  
"What's that?"  
"A Death Eater? They're a group of Evil Wizards under the leadership of the greatest Dark Wizard of our time, Lord Voldemort. He's trying to obliterate the muggles and leave only pure blood wizards."

"So they're humans too? They won't be able to see me. I'll be fine."

"I saw you."  
"Yea, and I'm still trying to get through that, but thankfully I can just write you off as weird." He had been losing color for a few minutest now, clearly the conversation had been taxing, but he was careful to not show any of it in his mannerisms. Now, though, his color had faded completely and was starting to hint a slimy green color.

"You need sleep now. Your stomach is still a little sore, but it should do fine as long as you go easy on it." I took his empty cup and bowl to the counter and cast a cleaning spell then a particular vanishing spell that appearated it back to it's place. When I turned around to force him to go to sleep, he was already unconscious. I hoped it was voluntary and he didn't pass out. Either way, I figured I would go get ready for the day even though I couldn't venture out of the hotel room. I needed a hot shower to chase off the cold chill that found its way through my jacket.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: The Mirror Call**

After I showered and a changed into warmer clothes, the temperature and lowered another 5 degrees, I decided to work on another painting. I pulled out some WizPaints from my suitcase and started planning the shapes to paint some scenery at the graveyard. There was a particular flower there that I had wanted to paint, but had forgotten since.

Hours went by and I could feel the temperature drop even more, but didn't have the energy to restore it. I would have to do something about the security spells, they were taking too much energy being suspended. I finally put the paints down, not really able to hold them up anymore. I looked up to see if Renji Abarai was still asleep to find he was awake and looking at me with a look of concern.

"You should be asleep." I started putting my paints away and cleaning my brushes.

"I could say the same to you."

"I am fine. You're the one with holes in his body. I am in perfect health."

"So you can answer my questions then. Good." He was able to sit up fully now without much struggle which meant he was doing much better than 5 hours before. "Why does everything move?"  
"Everything's moving? Does your head hurt? I forgot to check for head trauma, oops." I stopped looking for a pot to make soup in and started walking toward him to check his head.

"What? No, my head is fine. How are you able to give orders to bandages and they obey you?"  
"Oh, it's a simple animation spell. I'm just here by myself, and it gets rather lonely, but with all my little friends helping me when I ask them, it's not so bad."  
"You're here by yourself? You're what, 12?"  
"17, and I've been able to take care of myself for a long time, Thank you very much. Wendy and I have been on our own for 2 years now. Most of the year we're off at school and we sold the house we used to live in since there's just 2 out of the 5 of us left. Last summer we rented an apartment during the summer and held good paying jobs at the ministry as interns. This year she is traveling the world with The National Trade Association while I was supposed to be interning at the Hospital, but I decided to come here instead to visit my roots a little."

"Have you found it yet? What you're looking for?"  
"Well, I found this beat up Lieutenant."

"I meant the cupboard, and I wasn't beat up." I gave him the fish eye. "Much."

"You would have died if I hadn't saved you." Simultaneous whispers swept through the room making Renji jump. "Wendy!" I dug through my five jacket pockets until my fingers wrapped around a cold, smooth mirror. I pulled it out, said my name clearly, the smiled when the face of my best friend swam into view.

"Hey!" I said into the mirror, not noticing Renji looking at me incredulously.

"Hey girl, you look pale are you sick?" She asked her face turning from excitement to concern in an instant.

"No, I am fine, I don't get sick remember?"

"Yea, like you've never said that before," She raised her eyebrow but dropped it.

"So what have you been up to? How is the internship going?" I walked over to my bed and sat down absentmindedly, pulling my blanket over me.

She rolled her eyes "Good, I suppose. These people are so impossible to please sometimes."

"Just threaten to Hex 'em." She laughed at my suggestion.

"That sounds like a _wonderful_ idea. Unfortunately I would not only be fired, I'd probably be sent to Azkaban or my name being Blacklisted at the very least."

"Aaand there's a problem with that...why?"

"You're right, there is no problem with never feeling anything but despair at Azkaban. Tropical islands don't even compare! Next thing you know there will be Owls sending advertisements for the new rooms. Soon they will have to Expand and make it a chain."

"I for see them going out of business because they will have to ban chocolate."

"I miss you," I agreed, laughing.

"So where are you now?"

"Well, I'm currently on a plane to Japan from The Ministry. So it's long and boring!"  
"Why can't you just appearate?"

"Because we're riding with Muggles and it's polite to ride on a plane with them, make conversation, all that jazz," She sighed.

"Wait, if you're with Muggles, doesn't that...wait, are you in the bathroom?"

"Yea, I said I had to make an important call." She smiled that smile that made everything she said automatically make sense. That smile she always smiled and you would believe snow was actually frosting from heaven. "Are you sure you're OK.? You even look a little green."

"I'm fine, I'm just using a lot of magical energy."  
"Why? Are you making a Love Potion? I hear those take so much energy to make they go bad while you recover. Oh I knew it! You went off to England and have all the fun without me just like you did in Chicago!" She looked accusingly at me.

"No, only the really powerful ones make you that tired, the ones that don't wear off for a year or two. You have to have someone else make them for you, the little ones are cake."

"What's a Love Potion?" Renji asked at the most inopportune time.

"A potion to make someone think they are in love with someone else. It's like a fake tan: slightly off color and temporary."  
"Who are you talking to?"She raised her eyebrow at me and smirked.

"Wait! No, I am NOT using a Love potion! And for the record the one in Chicago didn't even work right. He was supposed to fall in love with Chelsea, not me!"

"You made someone fake fall in love with you?!" Renji looked at me as if I had just killed someone in front of him. If he wasn't bandaged up, he'd probably be gone in an instant.

"You be quiet or I'll make you fall in love with this pillow then leave you in public."

"Are you going to tell me who you're talking to or not? Is he cute? Oh, I bet he is. Andrea, Andrea, you boy snatcher." She smiled seeing my face turn slightly pinker by the moment.

"Yea, yea, if you were here, I'd turn you into a frog!"

"You can turn-" I glared at him and he shut up instantly, looking scared.

"So I was in the graveyard looking at Great Grandpa J's Gravestone when this weird guy came out of no where and tried to kill me, then this other guy in this crazy red hair came out of a different nowhere and saved my life. During their fight he was fatally injured, so I brought him back to my hotel room to patch him back up." I explained and, though I could tell Renji didn't appreciate the name I gave him, his lips remained shut.

"Yea, I bet this happened like a week ago, you never tell me anything!"

"Chill out, this happened yesterday."  
"Why didn't you tell me yesterday?! Jerk!"

"Because this stupid Death Eater came and I had to suspend the room."

"Oh, geez, you better find something else to do because you won't be able to keep it up for very long."

"I know, we've already dropped almost 20 feet and 30 degrees."

"Yeesh, so what are you going to do?"  
"I don't know. I'm hoping, if I can get some sleep and warm up, I will be able to reestablish the difference."

"I see, good luck with that. I would help if I was there."

"I know you would."  
"So, this red head. Is he cute?"  
"He's sitting right here, listening to everything we say."  
"Oh, right-"  
"Yea, earlier he started rambling on about all this stuff about Arrancars and Souls and stuff. I think he's nuts." At that Renji got a grip on his pride again and started to protest silently yelling at me, realizing talking did nothing. "He thinks I'm the only one who can see him, he's pretty much off his rocker in my opinion." I turned my mirror around and took a picture of him in the middle of yelling something obscene and sent it to Wendy. "That's him."

She looked him over, bursting into teary laughter.

"Hey! That's not fair! That was not a good picture of me, you can't send that!"

"He looks like a control freak." She winked at me and smiled, knowing he would hear.

"Oh, he is. Always ordering me around!"

"Hey! I am not, you're the one with all the orders!" I glanced at him and was caught off guard by how funny his face looked all contorted between confused and insulted. It only made me laugh harder.

"Oh, hey, I have to get back! Sorry, I miss you so much! You should give me updates on where you go incase we cross paths, I'll take you out to lunch. I love you!" She said quickly then the screen shimmered from the face of my sister to a pair of dark brown eyes full of laughter over an incredibly pasty face. I put it in a pocket and got up to retrieve the soup that was boiling on the stove.

We ate in silence. He didn't even look at me, but at the same time, I didn't really mind being silent. I was used to being silent and alone, content with not saying a word for days. Sometimes, usually during a personal crisis, I would bury myself in my art for days and not come out of a closet I had turned into a studio. That was how I dealt with terrible things, and fortunately for me, I could display my pieces at an Art Show in Hogsmead every month where people bid on my pieces as a set or individually.

I was banking on the soup warming me up, and being able to go right to sleep, but the soup had barely touched the cold caused by the massive energy flow.

"Are you done?" I asked and he nodded muttering a 'thank you'. "I am sorry, but you know we were only joking. We are like that when we're together." I offered the olive branch, hoping he'd take it. I didn't need another enemy, especially one that I'd just patched up. I stood up to take our dishes to the counter, but only got a few feet past the end of the bed. It was all my body could handle, I could feel the temperature drop another ten degrees suddenly, the room come crashing back to where it was and my body falling toward the floor, eyes shut.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Moving**

My eyes opened but I still couldn't see. It took a few seconds for me to realize it was night. Slowly shapes swam into focus, it was incredibly warm and I was almost comfortable. Until I realized who's arm was under my head, holding me to him, and who's bandaged chest my hand was resting on. My head looked up to see Renji's face totally emotionless, twitching occasionally with sleep. I put my head back down and pretended I hadn't woken up.

Sunlight from the blindless window illuminated my face, annoying my lid-blanketed eyes. I brought my hands up, rubbing the sleep from my face. It was then I remembered, pausing to peak through my fingers to see if he was still asleep. His eyes met mine and my fingers snapped back together, sitting still, covering my face.

He spoke immediately, "I don't mean to be a bother, but I think there is something wrong with these bandages. They hurt really bad." As he spoke I remembered that I hadn't had a chance to change his bandages the previous night to help his progress. They only help if taken care of, if left in too long, they become a problem instead of an aid. I crossed my fingers that it didn't get infected while I was asleep. I didn't even bother walking to the other side of the bed before pulling out my wand.

"Quickly please." The bandages sprang to life, removing, cleaning, and (more importantly) letting me see the damage.

"You are OK, I am really sorry. You should have woken me up when it started hurting." I hadn't planned on bringing it up, but I couldn't believe he had let it go for what looked like 3 hours without so much as moving. "Thank you," I said to my bandages as fresh ones curled carefully over the considerably small wounds. "And thank you," I turned to him, "how did you-"

"I've seen you ask these things politely and they beckon to your every wish and I figured it would work with me if I asked nicely. So, after you fainted, I asked your blanket very nicely if it would carefully pick you up and put you next to me so I can warm you up and keep you safe." He cut me off.

"That's not supposed to work for Muggles or even Soul Reapers."  
"Yea, it didn't, I just hoped you would believe me so I wouldn't get in trouble for picking you up myself."

"Well, no wonder your bandages hurt so much! Good heavens, how did you even do that? You shouldn't be able to walk around so easily!"

"What can I say, I'm a beast."

"Yea, well, if you're such a beast, you can go wash yourself. You smell."

"I will," He made to move in his new bandages, but settled back down. "Later."

I got up and spent a few hours repairing all the broken things and putting all the fallen clutter. We needed another place to stay, but where? Before long, there would be another attack that I didn't want to deal with. While I cleaned, I started putting things away into my suitcase and de-animating objects that belonged at the hotel after thanking them for their work. I put the last of my paints into my bag and sealed it up. I walked over to Renji.

"Let's see," I said, putting my wand up to his almost healed wounds. "Ah, much better than earlier, the swelling has completely gone down and you should be able to walk after I take all the sealant out. After I removed all the orange and left just the bandages to do the rest, I started walking toward the bathroom to make sure I had packed everything. I would cause a lot of trouble if I left something animated here and it bit a muggle. Animated objects are aggressive when not around magic folk and are deadly poisonous.

My skin still felt abnormally warm against the blankets, I guessed it was because of the wounds I had sustained fighting. They throbbed, but it was nothing to how they should feel this soon after my fight. Although being awake on and off made it seem like longer despite the entertainment that just walked into the bathroom.

"Where are we going?" I asked, assuming that I had to go too seeing as how she wouldn't even let me go get my Soul Pager.

"We are going somewhere." She sighed looking around for the millionth time. I guessed by the sigh that she didn't even know where we were going. Wonderful. That's all I needed right now was to be stuck with a human that doesn't know what she's doing.

"OK, I think I got everything, let's get going. We should get going before the Death Eaters realize there are no protection spells up. You should be able to walk now." She picked up her weird bag that she was somehow able to put everything in the room in without any trouble. What was even more odd is how she was able to pick it up without any problem when it should have weighed a ton. I swung my feet off the edge of the bed, testing my body. It was stiff and my joints ached from disuse. I'd been practically motionless for a long time. I coaxed my legs into walking over to the door. As I put one in front of the other, my abdomen clenched and released, almost disabling me. I released some spiritual energy to counteract the pain. Slowly, I released enough to numb the pain, it was a relief after holding it back for so long.

"What is that?" Andrea asked leaning against the wall for support. I'd forgotten she wasn't used to reiatsu. I walked over to her and picked up her bag which was extremely light. Figures.

"Sorry, that's my spiritual pressure, I had been constraining it to not draw attention to us. You will be fine once your body adjusts to it's effects."

"'So we don't draw attention'? Great, so now we will? Good plan."

"Hey, I can fight now. I'm a lot stronger then I was yesterday. I could defeat a Hollow if one came." I felt more like the protector then the patient now, which is where I belong. Hospitals are not for me.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Confused Doesn't Begin To Explain

"Hollows are those soul-eating monsters, right?"

I nodded. Finally she was catching on.

"The invisible monsters that only you and I can see."

"Well-" She cut me off and I wondered why I even told her anything.

"Somehow, you're not making me feel any better." She thought she didn't feel good about the situation. We were walking down the stairs and had come to the door. When I felt the presence of a Hollow on the other side of the door. It must have sensed my reiatsu. I looked at her and saw that she sensed it too.

I opened the door, drawing my Zanpakuto, and stepped into the sunlight. It was a little larger than normal, but compared to the Arrancars, it was child's play. After a minute or two, I landed a swift blow to it's head and felt my weapon slide easily through it, freeing the poor tortured soul. Just when I saw it disappear, I noticed for the first time the presence of a Hollow behind me, where Andrea had been. I quickly turned around, hoping I wasn't too late, but witnessed something else entirely.

It had chased her down the sidewalk and across the parking lot and was closing in to kill her after she'd tripped. I had only taken about three steps before she stood up unnaturally, like a hypnotized rag-doll. Her facial expression was somewhere between confused and focused. The ring she wore was glowing an odd yellow color.

She made odd movements like she was wielding something, and somehow blocked an attack with an invisible weapon. Then, quite abruptly, a metal soul box appeared on her chest, but was gone in a blink, then back again. Her outline seemed to become fuzzy, like she was disappearing except more like she was turning liquid because she wasn't going becoming harder to see. She leapt into the air still shimmering with an odd outline that was becoming more unclear by the second. When she came down on the Hollow, something that looked very much like a Zanpakuto appeared for only a second before it sliced through the Hollow and disappeared. Before she hit the ground, a crack ripped through her soul box and she landed in a crumpled heap on the concrete, her body completely solid again.

I ran over to her just as some of my team members appeared at the edge of the parking lot. I picked up the girl who had saved my life and promised her under my breath that I would save hers.

"We need to get to Urahara's Shop now."  
"That's not a soul, that's a human!" Rangiku said, lifting her eyebrow in surprise.

"I have to talk to Urahara," I said, with her limp body in my arms, we left.

Upon entering Urahara's Shop, I found him drinking a cup of tea. He looked up calmly, seeming only slightly surprised. He got up and walked to one of his back rooms generally used by one of us resting up. I put Andrea down on a mat and quickly explained to him what I had seen.

"Well, well. Sounds interesting, I wish I could have been there."  
"Urahara! This isn't some science specimen, she's a human. Now, can you treat her or not?!"

"Calm yourself, I've never even heard of this happening, so I don't know. Her reiatsu is weird, let's see this chain of hers. He took his weird cane, tapped against her forehead lightly, and gasped at what gently shifted to lay beside her body. Her soul seemed to be a soul reaper sort, but twisted in the weirdest way. Her uniform was dark, dirty green rather than black and tattered beyond any sort of repair and barely covering necessary regions. That was normal comparatively. She was a Hollow as far as any one of us could tell. Her Hollow hole was where her diaphragm would have been, but her reiatsu had such a weird taste nearly unbearably sour. Her whole body was covered in scale-like bone that had an odd shimmer that almost glowed.

Her shut peaceful eyes snapped open a moment after she had been released from her human body. Her purple eyes caught the smile that spread across her face like a cat assessing it's pray. Her mouth opened, revealing perfectly straight little razors cleverly disguised as teeth jutting from her black gums. Just as suddenly as her eyes opened, she whipped out her Zanpakuto, slashed a fatal blow to Urahara and myself, and leapt for the roof.

Before she could crash through the ceiling entirely, the unnaturally short chain caught, making a sickly ripping noise as the block attached directly to Andrea's body ripped from her chest at the cracked corner. A piercing scream came from Andrea's body, and the Hollow looked down in disbelief. The ring on Andrea's finger began glowing brightly, at the same time on the Hollow, a ring shown brightly on the same finger. Her body's eyes opened and light shot out off her bright yellow eyes, her whole body animated with electrical energy. Her ringed hand grabbed the chain.

"Get back here," She said in a dark, powerful voice, giving the chain a hard yank. The Hollow fell back to the ground, disappearing inside Andrea's body. Once more, the room was calm, the only evidence of anything actually happening was the slight glow of her ring and the gashes in both of us. We both stared at each other blankly, not sure if we should believe what just happened.

Seconds later, Orihime ran into the room, hearing the scream. She was trailed after by the three modsouls in their stuffed animal forms.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: I Was Fairly Certain That Couldn't Happen

"Is everyone alright?" she asked, her eyes widening as they fell over our wounds.

"Everything is fine." Urahara started to stand, but stumbled.

"It sure didn't sound alright. It sounded like someone got their head ripped off. Is that a human girl?" Lirin's high voice pitched while Orihime started healing our injuries.

"I'm not really sure what she is, but she's not human, I'll tell ya that." Urahara said, staring in wonder at her. "Where in the world did you find her?"

"Actually I wasn't the first to find her, I was chasing an Arrancar, and it happened to be attacking her."

"I'm wondering about that ring. I thought at first it was just a protector, but I have a feeling it is more than-" he was cut off by a white light appearing just above Andrea's head. Anxiety crept through my stomach as I expected some other dazzlingly dangerous and confusing thing to pop out when, instead, her suitcase with everything imaginable in it appeared and settled gently just above where she lay. It popped open and out came that tattered notebook I'd seen the ring itself come from. It landed on her stomach and she opened her dark brown and completely normal eyes.

"Where am I?" She sat up slowly, wincing and clutching her chest with one hand and the journal with the other. Looking around, she was trying to stay calm, but I could tell she was terrified. It was then that she noticed the notebook in her hand. She looked down at it confused, but opened it anyway. Bright light erupted from the open pages, as she threw her arm up to shield her eyes, holding herself up with her other arm.

The light dimmed and on the open page, it said

Welcome, my dear daughter.

Then, as if an invisible hand were hard at work, light-script scrolled across the page.

By now you have awakened your soul. My apologies for not warning you about your Hollow Form. You are a Witch, but you are also a Soul Reaper and a Hollow. This is going to be a very confusing time for you, but you must hold onto your soul with everything you have. You are in grave danger with your powers awakened, but you would be in a great deal more if you were ever discovered and put through this transformation without my guidance.

I looked up from my Great Grandfather's Journal again to the strange room. By now I was almost used to his notebook writing to me in liquid light, but it must have seemed really strange to the three other people plus stuffed animals that seemed to stand and move on their own. As frightened as I was about being in an odd place with strangers looking over my shoulder, I couldn't help but feel they could help me with what ever this is. I saw Renji's face looking carefully at the notebook, then at me with such careful worry and confusion that I knew I would be safe. I looked back down at the notebook and continued reading what everyone else had most likely already read.

You are a very special case. I suppose I have to take a great amount of responsibility for that, I am sorry you have to go through this. I, the Former Captain of the 7th Court Guard Squad, married an incredibly powerful witch and fathered four beautiful children. I never imagined how powerful they would grow to be. My three sons graduated with high honors from Hogwarts and became very skilled in their respective fields of interest. My youngest, Margaret, was only 16 when she graduated Hogwarts. She was smart, funny, beautiful and always had a hard time keeping guys away from her. The poor blokes, in love with her magnetism. She went to work for an underground group purging the world of angry ghosts. Essentially she was fighting Hollows. I tried to discourage her, but every effort I made, only made her more interested in them. She could see and interact with Hollows quite well, and her magical abilities allowed her to tap into her Soul Reaper heritage without actually becoming one. However, she did emit large amounts of spiritual pressure and attracted bigger and bigger Hollow.

Finally, she came across an Arrancar when she was 24. He was stronger than even I, a captain. She didn't stand a chance. As he was about to devour her alive, he snatched her up and left to Huaco Mondo. I was terrified. It would have been different if I had seen him kill her. I could have slept knowing she died painlessly. For six long months I wondered how they tortured her, being forbidden to enter Huaco Mondo myself.

Then she showed up on my doorstep.

With him.

My little girl had gone off and fallen in love with an Arrancar.

He asked me for her hand, I denied absolutely. They got married anyway.

This was a new concept for me to get my head around. A Witch Soul Reaper and an Arrancar. They had a little girl and when she was five, I sealed her powers up inside her. As long as she didn't get too close to a powerful Hollow, she would be fine. I had no idea what kind of power the mixture would produce. At around the same time, she had your father, and when he turned five I sealed his power as well. This meant they could be neither Hollow or Soul Reaper. Their magical ability was stunted, but they were safe. Several years later, however, the other Arrancar decided it was traitorous to marry a human and killed both my daughter and her husband.

Their two children were undetectable, and were otherwise safe with me until they were of age to start their own lives. Unfortunately not long after they had, my spell wore out and they were murdered by the Arrancar.

I was sitting up fully now, hunched over. I looked at my hands, limply in my lap. I wished more than ever that I had just gone to my internship. It would have been so much easier to burry myself in the bandages, blood, puss, broken bones, and sweat of the afflicted. At least I would have been able to be a normal witch with a normal job at the Hospital or in the field. Tears started trickling down my cheeks.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: I'd Always Thought My Other Half Would Be Nicer

"I just wanted to be a Healer. Now I'm a freak like you," I said to Renji without thinking.

"You're a lot more of a freak than I am." He paused, "You must be scared."

"I think I can handle it." I relaxed slightly, putting the journal on the floor next to me. "I just don't know what I'm supposed to be doing." I looked up at the strange man in a striped hat who was staring at the journal deep in thought.

"I think the only thing you can do right now, is get your Hollow under control. If you can do that, then we can look at what else there is to do. That seems like the most dangerous thing at this point. We will have to deal with the Arrancar later anyway," he said still staring at the journal. I sighed. It did sound like that was the only thing to do. I couldn't have this Hollow thing going berserk and killing everyone, and from what Renji had told me about Hollows, they'd do just that.

"Shouldn't we try to heal her soul chain first?" As he spoke, it suddenly became nearly impossible for me to breath. It felt like someone was choking me from inside my throat. Next, my head exploded in agonizing pain and a demonic chuckle ripped through my consciousness. Then it was gone and all that remained was a faint pulsing numbness in the back of my mouth, like the echo of a threat.

"I don't think she has that kind of time, Freeloader," the man with the weird hat said.

"I'm fine," I said weekly as my vision started coming back. I tried to stand up, but I was too exhausted and my whole body seemed to hurt.

"You really should stay put," Renji said as he caught me and helped me stand for a few minutes until I could stand mostly on my own.

"If I can't even stand, how do I expect to defeat this Hollow?"

"She's right," the striped hat said.

"What should we do? You just said we didn't have time to heal her."

"I suppose we could give it a try, but we'll have to do it downstairs in a shielded area. Just incase." He eyed me uneasily, I supposed he was trying to decide how much of a threat I was. I didn't blame him, I would be doing the same thing.

I felt a presence drawing near. It was only a few yards away from me now, and I felt strong enough to grab the journal and take off toward her. I ran only a few yards before I was a little lost, with Renji and his friends tailing me. I heard talking and turned in the direction of her voice, and within seconds I found her. Wendy was accompanied by 3 gentlemen, two rather large and scarey looking, while the other seemed to be very friendly and unable to frown. I ran to her and embraced her with all the energy I had, pushing the journal into her hands after letting go.

"What is this?! How? I told you to give me-" I cut her surprised rambling off and looked at her very seriously.

"Find a place to read this. Trust me, we're in for more then we could ever ask for." I spoke under my breath, trying not to draw too much attention from the other three who were being greeted by the man with his striped hat.

"You look really terrible. Have you been eating Rat Poison again?"  
"What? No! And for the record, that was advertised as candy."

"Yea, by that mean boy who was always trying to dual you." I could feel my Hollow getting ready to attempt to come out again as she spoke.

"What ever shield thing he was talking about, I need it. Now!" I said quietly to Renji, grabbing his sleeve. He scooped me up and ran so fast it was like we were flying, then my head started to throb and my throat closed up.

When I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by some sort of yellow light. It must have been the shield they were talking about. I looked around and saw we were in a desert sort of place under a big blue sky. It would have been beautiful if I didn't feel so sick to my stomach. To my horror, I threw up seconds after I saw several pairs of familiar eyes staring at me.

"You're so pathetic," laughed a chillingly familiar voice from above me. I looked up to behold the scariest monstrosity I have ever had the misfortune in meeting. She had my hair, but it was tied in a bunch of little yellow bands looking messy and sticking up everywhere. She had my body, even though it was covered with odd scales and almost nothing else. Even her voice sounded eerily like my own, with a hint of eye shadowed malice and a dark lipstick cringe. Her eyes, though. Her eyes were not mine. Their metallic purple gaze seemed to open everything around her, leaving exactly what she was thinking glistening across their surface. My dark brown eyes acted as a shield, I always hid behind them, trying my hardest to never let anything show. That's where her weakness was. Her eyes showed me everything. I was good at hiding, but I was also good at reading people, and she was particularly easy to read.

I got to my feet, the metal box on my chest making my whole body throb with pain. I felt the absence of my wand in my pockets, but felt another power crawling, untamed, inside me. Every sense was enhanced as I felt the power take over my limbs. It was more of an electric, spidery feeling crawling across my skin pricking my pores and singeing my hair.

"Aw, look at you. You have no where to go and no one to teach you how to use your powers. Well, except me of course, and you have no chance of making me. Soon, I will break off that chain and be gone. You will be nothing but an empty shell. A corpse. A memory with not even a soul to guide," She laughed and rose higher, pulling on my chain sending sharp pain through my chest.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Wendy Is Lightly Assaulted**

I quickly put the pocket mirror back into my purse and slid out of the airplane bathroom. I squeezed past a friendly flight attendant, and walked steadily back to my seat next to a muggle businessman. I set my purse down and opened my muggle laptop.

"How was your phone call?"

"It was nice, I got to speak to my sister for the first time since we left school."

"I'm guessing this wasn't a regular phone since you can't use them on the plane, did you fill the sink and use the water?"

"Oh, no, that's so 16th century. I use a pocket mirror actually. I say my sister's name and her face swims into view. It's much better than a water way communication. They're often augmented and the water has to be still for the picture to come in clear. With the pocket mirrors, it's crystal clear all the time and the sound is so much better. Plus, there's the loveliest shades of makeup that come with them." The muggle just looked at me in wonder.

"So...nice chat with your sister then?"

"Oh yes, she is vacationing in the countryside. Though I'm not sure she's taking as good of care of herself as she should, but it's only natural I always worry about my sister I suppose." I smiled, shrugging off my concern in front of a stranger. There was an awkward pause as I booted up the computer and started to work on my latest project and the reason for our trip to Japan.

"I'm usually not into muggle things because I'm so accustomed to magic, but this 'Google' thing is very useful."

"Yes, the internet is the world of today. It gets bigger every day and so many things depend on it."

"I can see why, so tell me. What sorts of products do you intend to sell to the Soul Reapers through Urahara's shop?" The gentlemen went on for several minutes about soul pills, genetically enhanced Gigai, and many other products usually made in the soul society. I was only half paying attention, I must admit. His business was interesting, but my mind couldn't stop bringing up my sister and the strange man she was with. It wasn't like her to pick up strange men. It's not that I expected her to not help him, but she was becoming familiar with him more than she usually did with her patients. This worried me slightly. As would any good sister, I wanted to meet him and make sure of his intentions.

When the businessman finally stopped his rant and slipped into a fitful sleep, I sighed in relief. I always preferred silence when I worked. I typed away at the reports I had spent the last two months compiling about Soul Reapers and the importance they had in our trading system. Even as I worked, I couldn't help but feel jealous that Andrea had decided against her internship at the last minute. I wished she had informed me of her intentions before we both went our separate ways. I would've loved to go with her. We were always together, through everything. Ever since my parents died and I went to live with her family. We seemed to be connected by that string of events and then, even more so a few years ago when her parents were involved in that accident. She's the only person I have ever been able to share my whole self with and has accepted every bit of me. She would always understand how much I hated being so charismatic sometimes, how I wished people would shun me as they should. I hated all the attention I got, and often just wanted to be alone. I never wanted to be the spokesman for all those pointless clubs, nor did I really want to exploit my talents in this internship. I loved the idea of bringing every part of this world and the next together into a cohesive place, but I always felt like there was always an alternate motive behind all these treaties.

Like the businessman sitting beside me. He couldn't really care less about the Soul Reapers, all he saw was a profit margin. Big dollar signs. That's all he saw. International Trade should be about how to profit everyone the most, how to bring everyone up and not one power head over the others.

I shut my laptop, feeling a sudden sense of hopelessness about the situation with the Soul Reapers. None of this is going according to how I had meant it. I had meant to bring everyone together, but it seemed like the more I worked on it, the more everyone else seemed to look for ways to get ahead in their own businesses because of the. More or less, everyone wanted to get a deal with them, reap a hefty profit and go back home to their offices and homes and second homes. To their wives, and children and mistresses. None of them seemed sincere, which is what I should have expected in hindsight. But dreams had a way of making everything sugar-coated, as if everyone had the interests of everyone else in the front of their minds at all times.

I woke up, my neck stiff from falling asleep. It was seconds before our plane landed and chaos ensued as everyone tried to exit the plane and find all their belongings. Luckily for me, I was able to find my luggage and a quiet place where I apparated to the hotel we would be staying in. I set my suitcase next to my bed and laid down to go back to sleep, knowing full well that I would be getting up in another three hours to prepare for our meeting with Kisuke Urahara and Tessai Tsukabishi. I was confident that I had made the right choice in the choosing to incorporate Urahara's Shop into the International Trade System.

Upon seeing the shop my hopes soared. These guys weren't greedy like everybody else I had met so far, I might finally be able to find some redemption for my internship. As I entered the shop with my fellow operatives, I was lightly assaulted by my sister. Completely nonplussed by her sudden appearance I rambled off incoherently. She then shoved the journal of great grandfather into my hand and told me "Find a place to read this. Trust me, we're in for more then we could ever ask for," completely puzzled by this I tried to lighten the suddenly dark atmosphere by inserting a inside joke. This was not the way I had wanted things to go, it shattered my calmness. It was in that moment I understood that I was in for a ride of a life time.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Just A Human**

"I don't see why you're so proud of your plan. If you break this tie, won't you disappear too?" I asked as I started to get a hold of the enormous power spreading to my fingertips.

"Nope. I will stay a Hollow, I will just become a full Hollow. Right now I am only part Hollow and you are only part human. The difference is that I chose to embrace the Hollow in me and you chose to be a Witch." She threw her body toward me wielding a powerful looking sword. She would have sliced my head off if I hadn't thrown myself out of the way.

"I don't understand how you can kill me. You're a part of me. I was born on the outside, the stronger one and you've never been able to so much enter my brain." The strength of my powers started to heal my weariness and I felt empowered by all the electricity. It wouldn't matter in a few minutes if I didn't work on my offense.

"Wrong again, weakling." She took another swing and landed a blow on my left shoulder. "The moment you put on that ring, I awakened," the pain made every other sense dull, all I could concentrate on was keeping myself composed. "I have been draining your energy." She rose up, flying with impossible agility. "It created a link between us so solid I could damage you until that Hollow gave me the strength to break out and save our life."

A light came on in my head.

"Look at you. Such a weak, pathetic little human." I could feel the static surround my wound. "Standing there like you own us." A feeling of relief washed through me, the blood stopped flowing, and the skin pulling together. "You will never even be able to compare to my superior strength," she crept closer to me with every word. "and when I rip us apart and you become a lower Hollow; I will devour you."

"Don't take me so lightly." I gripped the chain hard with the hand my ring glowed on. "I am not just a human." I unleashed a surge of electrical current so powerful through my hand up the chain, that it looked like prolonged lightening. She screeched high pitched and horrible for several seconds until it was done and she lay on the ground. A feeling of accomplishment and relief flooded through my body, then uncertainty. What was I supposed to do now?

She lifted her head, sick and pitiful looking, then a grotesque smile spread across her twisted revision of my own face. "You thought you had me, didn't you." She got up in a flash, and in another she was inches from me, her sword plunged into my abdomen. "You can't hurt me with my own power, human." She whispered in my face with so much spite, it made me choke. "Any last words?"

"Nope," I said, using the connection established between us by the ring. I pulled her by spirit chain closer to me, slicing her sword further into myself until our metal boxes connected. "I keep you. You are a part of me, and to deny myself the companionship of you would be to deny myself half of my own personality. You and I are the same, but two different parts of the same whole." A flash of light appeared between us. "You will submit to me." She started to glow, fear completely engrossing her face. "And you will teach me about _my_ powers." She broke into fragments of light and dissolved back into my body.

For the first time, I felt like a whole person, I felt like I fit into my hands, my legs felt completely mine, my magic had a reason, my life made sense. Unfortunately, I also felt closer to death than I had ever felt because the sword was still embedded in my body and the charge I had felt so strongly seconds before had vanished and the weakness returned four fold. I refused to pass out, but my body refused to move.

Urahara lowered the barrier containing Andrea and her Hollow as soon as the Hollow had disappeared. She was on her knees, a Zanpakutou sticking through the back of her no longer light blue shirt. As I ran to her, I noticed there was no reiatsu to be felt, but I could still feel the remnant of the two powerful reiatsus from seconds before. With Orihime beside me, I removed the Hollow blade and lay it next to her as Orihime went to work with her healing. I forced myself to step back, being swept with grief for my new friend. She was beautiful, there was no denying that. She was so brave and innocent. She was just a human.

I woke laying on my back, my body completely stiff. I never slept on my back. I tried to roll over and all my muscles screamed from disuse. How long had I been asleep? I sat up, my head spinning from being horizontal for so long. It took a few minutes for my sleep to completely wear off, then I got up to find Wendy, if she was still here. I walked out the door and realized that I was completely lost. I wondered which way I should go when I heard talking from my left. It was Renji, I sighed in relief, someone I knew. I walked toward his voice but froze when another voice spoke; a woman's. I was about to turn and walk the other direction when I heard my name. Naturally, I crept closer craning my neck to hear what they were saying.

"...I'm just glad I was able to able to save her," he was saying.

"I saw the way you looked at her; it was more than saving a human," the woman said.

"Rukia, she can't be more to me than an acquaintance, she's just a human." My heart stopped, but somehow my feet managed to run me back to the room I had woken up in before I could take another breath. I sat down, grabbed my blanket and cried for a long time. I hadn't realized how much I had liked him outside the boundaries of friends. I felt so embarrassed by that fact. If he truly thought I wasn't worth even friendship as a human, then there was nothing I could do, nor wanted to do to change his mind. No matter what I became, if I'm not good enough as a human, then nothing else would make a difference.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: Two Rings To Rule Them All...or At Least That Might Be More Fun**

After the seemingly endless meeting, I asked Urahara if it was okay for me to stay at his shop for the time being, expressing my concern for my sister. He then pulled me into a room that he said I could stay in.

"Are you and Andrea really sisters?" Surprised, I couldn't say anything other than the truth.

"We are not. Instead, we are actually 1st cousins." I left out the rest of our family history.

"I see. Well, it looks like you've got a lot of... reading ahead of you." He bowed out of the room, leaving me to my own devices.

Once I regathered my thoughts, I sat on a pillow on the floor and began reading the journal for what must have been the umpteen jillionth time. Two and a half pages in, Tessai poked his head in to ask if I needed anything. I shook my head thanking him, and continued my reading. Minutes later I nearly tore out a page when I heard shouting then a little crying. Deciding I would never be able to concentrate, I got up in search of a quiet place.

I was no more than down the hall from my room when I ran into Urahara.

"Can't concentrate, can you?"

"I'm afraid not, is there anywhere quiet I can go?"

"Not in this house, but I try the roof sometimes."

I sat on the roof, sighing. It was quite beautiful on the roof, seeing all the streets and feeling the wind rustle through my short hair. I started when something whistled through the air and hit the roof inches from where I sat. A soccer ball bounced back down the roof where a red headed kid was harassing a little black haired girl. Terrified for my life, I finally gave up reading anywhere on the shop's premises.

I slid down the roof, asked the children where the nearest park was located, and headed in that direction.

I stuffed the journal into my hoodie pocket before I climbed one of the trees. This way, I would not be disturbed by any passing animals or children. When I finally finished the journal, I was utterly confused. There was nothing different as far as I knew.

Suddenly, the pages rustled to the last entry as if an invisible hand were wildly at work. Underneath my ancestor's signature appeared a ring. It was small, and at first I though I was imagining things. A light blue moon shaped stone stood out of a simple silver band. The stone itself seemed to dance like liquid in the sunlight. I picked the ring up carefully and put on. Immediately, I felt a power surge through my body, then the air around me became so thick it was nearly impossible to breath. I instantly knew that these were the symptoms of some massive Spiritual Pressure. Regardless of my knowledge, I still fell out of the tree, landing with a rather grotesque thud.

A large man in unusual white hakamas stood before me, smirking.

"lookee what I found here... a tasty morsel, shame that I'm going to eat you, 'cause your really quite pretty," he chuckled and bent down to pick me up by the front of my shirt.

I hung limply in his grasp, he had absolutely putrid breath, and hair that was the most shocking shade of purple. I prayed that he would either devour me soon or someone would intervene before I suffocated.

Suddenly the air around me got even heavier, I was cursing my luck thinking it was the purple haired people eaters' friend, but much to my surprise I fell to the ground in a heap. I was able to look up to see that the man that had just been holding me was now missing an arm, and he looked increasingly perturbed.

"Soul Reaper, you should know better than to come between an Arrancar and his meal, but... you will go just nicely with this sweet."

Barely holding onto consciousness I heard the guy with orange hair taunt the man before I lost all consciousness.

When I resurfaced from the abyss, I was leaning against the tree I had fallen out of. Two very concerned people looked at me. Being a natural diplomat, I immediately stuck out my hand and introduced myself.

They looked at me, surprised that I had been so chipper for someone who had almost just been mauled.

The girl with black hair introduced herself as Rukia Kuchiki a member of the thirteen court guard squads, squad thirteen. She then introduced her orange-haired friend as Ichigo Kurosaki.

The one named Ichigo then started to shoot questions at me like a prosecutor would a witness.

"Actually, before we get too involved with questions that I probably can't answer, I recommend we make our way back to Urahara's Shop. It seems to be a bit safer there than out here." The two nodded, though I could tell they were even more curious that I even knew about Urahara's Shop, let alone that I had somewhat of a clear head when speaking after an Arrancar attack.

I tried stood up but immediately face-planted into the ground. Apparently large amounts of strong reiatsu does that to you after a while.

After we reached the shop, I went to my room to sit down for a while, mulling over all the events of the day. Admittedly, I was quite glad to be on this adventure rather than fooling myself with the internship. Night had fallen and I had a few questions for Andrea, so I set off down the hall in search for her room.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: Summer Homework (note: I'd do homework too if it meant mastering spells)**

"Rukia, she can't be more to me than an acquaintance, she's just a human," I said, not really believing myself as I said it.

"Renji, that girl is not just a human. Humans don't have Hollow Souls or magic rings or what ever else that girl had." 'or animated objects or paint that suspended in the air, or magic bags that could hold an entire house of things' I thought.

"Yes, but Rukia, she's a human. She has a real human body and was born in this world. I can't like her. I'm a Soul Reaper."  
"You don't really believe that do you? Ichigo is a human, but-"

"But he is a Substitute Soul Reaper too-"

"He was a human first." She stood up from her chair across the room from me. "I can't believe that you are being so stubborn about this. A Human, a Soul, a Soul Reaper, what's the real difference here? We all feel, we all need a purpose, we all need fellowship. I was talking to the visitors Urahara had. They are part of an International Trading Community. They deal with the Soul Reapers, Souls, Non-Magic humans, Magic Humans, Elves, Giants- all sorts of creatures that you wouldn't even believe existed. Andrea's sister, Wendy, is interning with them to learn how to unite everyone together so that when some evil force goes to destroy what holds good in the world (forces like Aizen) we will not find ourselves fighting alone." She was at the door and walked out. Before she stalked down the hall, she poked her head back in, "It's people like you that make aspirations like that impossible."

My door opened and I looked up to see Wendy walk into my room. She came over and put her arms around me. I gathered my voice, calmed myself, and told her what had happened in the hall in a low voice.

"And the worst part is I don't know why I'm so upset by that. I mean, why should it even matter anyway. I don't need him to make me happy, I don't even know him. I've known him for less than a week, what do I care what he thinks about me?"

"Maybe the issue isn't that you like him and he doesn't feel the same way, but that he didn't even give you a chance. That would make me mad. He signed you off as not even worth getting to know." She took her arms from around me and pulled out my wand from her pocket. "I went back to your hotel room to make sure you hadn't left anything in your hurry. Good thing too, otherwise you'd be without this." She handed it to me and I held it in my hands, just staring at it's beautiful ruby color.

"I think you're right." I had stopped crying, and decided to spend my time working on some summer homework instead of worrying about Renji. If he didn't want to be my friend, then I didn't need to be his.

"And if you really want to teach him a lesson, we could see if potions worked on Soul Reapers." We both burst into laughter, joking about previous pranks with Emotion Potions.

"Are you sure we are supposed to be down here?" I asked, looking around at the impossibly open blue sky.

"I told you already, I asked Urahara if we could use this place for our summer studies. He said we could if he could observe us once in a while. He hasn't gotten much time with Magic people, and I didn't see the harm in it as long as he stays out of the way, he shouldn't be in any danger." As she took out her wand, I saw a strange ring on her finger, I would have to remember to ask her about it later.

We spent the next 4 hours working on our three summer assigned spells. The first one was a complicated offensive spell that created a dozen daggers out of thin air, used for attacking your enemy from a distance without constantly casting cutting spells. Wendy spent a lot longer than me on that one, because she had a hard time getting them to maliciously attack anything. Instead, they kept carving cute animals in the rocks. She has never had the heart for attacking things, for killing, and for violence in general. She is so good at manipulating with her charismatic personality, she uses attacking as a last resort.

The next spell was a mechanical spell used to produce a muggle Automobile to blend in with all the muggle world. It was not as easy as the dagger spell, and because we didn't have a teacher to help, we had to rely on our textbook which only told us so much and didn't have a troubleshooting section. So both of our cars would only be partly solid and our hands kept getting stuck in their frames.

The third spell was purely defensive. It was a glimmer spell for witches and wizards to perform on each other to manipulate non-magic eyes. Wendy was just getting the hang of it when Renji decided to make an appearance. Urahara had long left to attend another one of his clients, and Renji was not aware we were practicing, so when he approached us, I looked like a very large man with sun-tanned skin, a weathered face, a strong frame, and tattered overalls.

"Hey Wendy," he looked at me with a confused expression, "who's he?"

"What do you want?" I said offensively, looking down at him.

"Hey, I wasn't even talking to you!" he said to me, looking like I'd just hit him.

"Calm down spiky," I said trying my best to be as intolerable as possible.

"Who does he think he is?" he said to Wendy.

"If you have something to say, say it to my face, coward." I watched him, hoping for a reaction.

"I am not a coward." He whipped out his sword. Just then, the half-glimmer spell started to collapse in on itself. The large man dissolved into a tiny young woman and his eyes widened and he looked like he was going to cry from embarrassment. I stood in front of his frozen body, arms folded.

"You get upset easily, don't you Renji." He seemed to snap back to reality when I said his name and he quickly put his sword away and stood up straighter than he had been, his face turning the color of his hair.

"Yea, well, I came to tell you girls that lunch is ready," he said in a low, quiet voice and then walked off quickly.

As soon as he was out of earshot we started laughing so hard we couldn't even stand.

"Did you see his face?"

"Aw, I know, his face turned so red when he realized it was you!"

"Yea, what if he would have tried to fight me?! That would have been terrible!"

"I almost feel bad though, that was kinda mean."

"Eh, I'll charm his bed to be super comfy to make it up to him."  
"He probably won't even notice."

"I don't care. I will know."


	15. Chapter 15

**Hello everyone! Since school's getting back in, the posts might not be every day. I'll try really hard, I have quite a few chapters written but I'm changing and reorganizing things to add more about the 'Wendy' character. Thank you everyone for reading! I really never expected this story to be a publishable one, so I greatly appreciate you're support. Tell me what you think, if you agree/disagree with the addition of Wendy as a dynamic character. Also, sorry for the short posts, I didn't think it would be a big deal since I'm posting every day. Still, I know how irritating it is to read a short post so in the chapters I haven't already written I will try to work on that...mostly because I'm running out of entertaining chapter titles. :D Happy Reading!**

**Chapter 15: What should I fear?**

I walked back up from the underground room after calling the weirdo humans for lunch only to run into Urahara.

"Hey, Renji, I've been looking for you."

"But you just sent me to call them for lunch," I said, pointing my thumb to the stairs.

"Oh yea, I did." I sighed. "Well I have a favor to ask of you."

"Do I have a choice?" I asked, knowing I wasn't going to want to do it.

"Do I have to feed you?" Jerk. "I need you to train Andrea."

"What? The human? Why me? Why can't Rukia or Ichigo do it?"

"Rukia left for the Soul Society last night, Ichigo doesn't have enough control and I don't want to clean up after him. You've been through the Soul Reaper Academy and know a lot more about fighting than he does." I smiled, of course I knew more than he did.

"Alright, but tell her she can't use magic, that stuff creeps me out. It's just not right."

"You tell her. And while you're at it, convince her to let you train her," He said, walking away.

"WHAT? You haven't even asked her?"

"Calm down, come eat lunch, Moocher."

After lunch, everyone but the three human girls were left.

"I'll just take these dishes over to the sink." Orihime said reaching for the empty bowls on the table.

"No, allow me," Andrea said, whipping out her magic stick. She uses that thing for everything. She gave it a wave and the dishes soared through the air, into the sink, and started cleaning themselves.

"Thank you! That was very nice of you," Orihime said in her innocent, appreciative voice.

"It was no problem, there is no sense in making you or anyone else wash dishes when they can do it themselves." They started into a conversation about some dumb girl thing before I could ask Andrea to be her trainer. She seemed sweet enough to Orihime, but she had totally freaked me out earlier with her stupid spell trick. How was I supposed to know that under all that man there was a little girl? Stupid magic. Stupid humans and their stupid magic. Ruining my training.

I got up, maybe I would catch her later, if not, I'll just tell Urahara she said no. I got up to leave the babbling girls as quick as possible, not wanting to be around so much giggling and squealing for more than two seconds. They reminded me of a bunch of birds.

I was walking back from a shower, after training with Chad, when I found her. She was sitting in the windowsill of an empty dinning room, crying. Against my better judgement, I walked over and sat beside her. We just sat for a while, the silence only broken by her quiet sobs. Finally, she lifted her head to look at me.

"Why are you sitting next to me in just a towel?" She put her head back down on her knees.

"I just saw you crying, I didn't think to go change and then come back. Would you like me to leave?"

"I just thought you'd be worried about your virtue." I laughed.

"Forgive me for saying, but I don't really consider you a threat." I put my hand on her shoulder.

"I'm not sure why you don't, have you already forgotten that I have skills you could never even hope to possess?" She stood up so fast, I didn't even have time to take my hand down, so it just hovered in the air with me feeling slow. The old creepy journal, that I hadn't seen before, fell to the floor.

"I could make you dance," she said, wand in hand. She had procured a small mannequin out of nowhere and made it jump to life, dancing. "I could make you flip, I could make your skin break into boils, I could encase you in ice," the mannequin obeyed each demand like a human would, it flipped when she told it to, nasty red boils appeared all over it's surface, and as it appeared to be looking at it's cloth in horror, it froze and a huge block of ice appeared around it. With every image, I began to wonder what really were her limitations.

"I could burn you alive," fire melted the ice in seconds and started to burn a dancing mannequin, "I can make fire harmless," the mannequin didn't seem to be dancing away from the flames, but rather laughing and holding it's sides. "With these hands, I could kill you with the flick of my wrist." The mannequin disappeared entirely, and the room looked as if nothing had happened. She stood there, in the middle, head hung low and arms limp. "You should fear me, Renji." Her voice was low and almost inaudible. "I do. I am a monster," she whispered.

I got up from where I had been sitting, dumbstruck by her display. "I know you are powerful, even though I do not understand it, but I also know that you are good. You, in all your power, do no take advantage of other people, even though you have the ability. You recognize the power in things and you respect that."

"I feel so alone."

"What about your sister?"

"She's only here for so long, then she probably has to go back to her internship."

"You have me."

"Yea, right. You. The only reason you came in here is to ask to train me. Since you're the only one who will, I guess we can start our training tomorrow morning." She grabbed her journal and ran out of the room. I wondered how much she knew that she wasn't letting on.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: Demonstrations**

"Wendy, may I speak to you for a minute?" Urahara called from his study as I walked by.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, standing before his rather cluttered desk.

"Not at the moment, I wanted to ask if you would accept Rukia Kuchiki's training? She has a great deal of experience with something of this nature because of Ichigo."

"If she wouldn't mind offering some assistance, I would be grateful."

"Already asked her and she said she would be honored and is anxious to investigate this hollow form you and your cousin have."

"Then that makes two of us. It's a part of me, so you'd think it would come naturally, but it just feels so weird."

"Give it time and I'm sure you will grow into it."

"Wait a second, how did you know her and I were cousins?"

"Some things I just know about a person. It's called researched intuition."

"You sound an awful lot like Headmaster Dumbledore."

"Then he sounds like a great man."

"You're both creepy old men who know way too much about people without asking. Maybe you shouldn't meet, you'd probably form a creepy-old-men's club or something." Suddenly there was a pop in the room and standing beside Wendy was none other than the Headmaster himself.

"What? How did you get here?" Wendy said ungracefully.

"I would have thought it would be quite obvious with the crack that resounded through the room just now. Surely a bright young witch such as yourself could figure that out." He winked.

"Yes, I gathered that, but why I guess would be the better question."

"You should know by now, Miss Wendy, that my name is taboo."

"Which one Dumbledore, or creepy old man?" She mumbled under her breath.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Headmaster." Urahara jumped into a sweeping bow, taking off his hat in the process. Dumbledore followed suit and Wendy awkwardly snuck out of the room.

I sat in the middle of my empty room with Rukia. We had been pouring over the journal for an hour and my headache had finally gotten the better of me.

"I've had enough, let's get to it."

"I'm guessing by your confidence you have a plan then?" I asked as I stood.

"Nope, but you often learn the most by doing. And I have a pretty good idea of what _not_ to do, so we should be fine." She put on a glove that could have belonged to a twelve year old boy and pushed her hand through my forehead. It was the most awkward feeling I have felt in my short, but eventful life. The feeling of having your soul pushed out of your body is not something I am ever likely to get used to.

My Hollow form slouched next to me looking bored. She looked up from the heavily manicured nails she'd been examining to me. Her silver eyes evaluated my black slacks, suit top over a purple shirt, plain black dress shoes, and my light brown hair tightly tied back.

She yawned loudly.

"You've _got_ to be kidding me," I groaned.

"You're telling me. You're fashion sense is so boring, I might take a picture and use it instead of alcohol to sleep at night."

"At least I don't look like...you." I gave her attire (which consisted of an outfit one might have gone clubbing in the night before, mixed with a terrible bedhead that made her look like she'd slept on her head) a disapproving look.

"Haha! I didn't think I could create such feelings in you. You're so uptight I didn't think you could think bad thoughts." My face turned scarlet with rage.

"Ok, ladies," Rukia cut in, coming dangerously between the two of us. "We need to get to work to figure out what we're supposed to be doing."

"You mean you guys didn't even have a plan?" my hollow laughed shortly. "I so don't want to do this right now." She tried to retreat back into my body.

"Oh no you don't! We're going to figure this out before either of us can take a break." I grabbed her by the shirt.

"I don't know what you idiots think you're going to have to figure out. It's pretty simple really, you have to gain your Zanpakutou and learn it's techniques. However, you can't do any of that without me, so you had better get your hands off me if you ever want me to help you." I immediately withdrew my grip from her shirt.

"Look, I don't like this idea any more than you do, but we have to cooperate if we're going to survive. From what I know about this world with Hollows, we're rather tasty morsels for the monsters who devour people. I don't know about you, but I'd really rather not get eaten."

My Hollow snorted, "I am not a weakling like you, I can take care of myself."

"Not without me, I'm the one in control here. If we learn how to work together, then we can work as a team and grow exponentially stronger."

"Good job. You've figured it out. Now, can I go back to sleep?" She yawned again.

"YOU MEAN YOU KNEW?!" I shrieked, outraged.

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Because I wanted your little human head to figure it out for yourself," She chirped mockingly and patted my head.

I turned to Rukia "I'm going to kill her."

"OK! I think that's enough for today!" Rukia jumped between us again and used her gloved hand to shove my hollow back into me as she jumped in triumph.

**Hey guys, sorry I haven't posted. For some reason I had a idiot moment and forgot i had chapter 15 to post while I had writer's block for chapter 16. SORRY! Trust me, I felt dumb :D but now I have a few chapters built up and so the posts will be coming maybe more regularly? I'm not sure since I have lots of school and work to do, but I will certainly try! Please review! It makes me feel like people are reading my story and I'll want to post more. **


	17. Chapter 17

**Hey everyone, just a quick note. I uploaded chapters 15 and 16 at the same time. So if you read only chapter 16, you might want to go back and read 15. I'm not sure how essential it is, but some things might not make total sense (not that it does anyway, but assuming it does). Review! Also, have a great weekend! **

**Chapter 17: Oh, the Pranks**

I was in my room practicing my personal spell work that evening. After the announcement of the Dark Lord's return, Wendy and I had been careful to prepare ourselves for the day when his power would be strong enough to show himself to the whole world. My personal assignment for myself was to master a Patronus Charm before school next year. After all the crazy professors in our DADA classes, we decided to make our own curriculum. I had finally produced a real creature out of my white mist when my door slid open and Renji walked in.

"What tha- WHY IS THERE A TIGER IN YOUR ROOM!!" and it vanished back into the wispy mist it had been. Unfortunately, Renji didn't disappear into the wispy smoke too, instead he remained very much solid, running around, freaking out. He was carrying on with something about there being freaky magic messing things up every time he turned around when I put a silencing charm on him to keep his mouth shut.

"What do you want?" I asked coldly as he figured out he could no longer speak. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head, then he started making large, angry signals with his entire body. I assumed it meant he wanted his voice back, so I watched him for a minute, then let him have it.

"AH-- My VOICE!" it was high pitched now, and even more amusing than it was when he was silent, but I still managed to keep a straight face. He stammered where he stood, relieved that he had his own voice back. I cleared my throat and he stopped, remembering I was in the room.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"I doubt it, but you came to me, remember?" I said looking bored.

"No, you came to me." He folded his arms, obviously confused.

"You know what, you're right, what was I thinking?" I said, putting away my last text book. "I guess I was lost or something, I'll just leave you to your room then." I walked out the door, down the hall, stood by the door of his room, and waited. Wendy walked by, on her way to my room no doubt.

"What are you doing outside his room?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He's confused and thinks my room is his, so I figured I'd wait for him to realize he's an idiot."

"Oh, oops, I demonstrated on him for Urahara the Confundus Charm. I guess I forgot to lift it."

"I'll do it," I said, sighing and walking back to my room. Upon entry, I was met with a pillow planted into my face. "What are you doing to my room!" I shouted as I beheld my once tidy room now completely littered with all my things thrown all over the room.

"HEY! Look what I found!" Renji was holding up a blanket like it was the first time he'd seen one. "What does it do?" he looked at me like a child, asking why the sky is blue.

"Uh, you wrap it around your body to keep you warm." I walked into the room, waving my wand and all my things found their way back to where they belonged.

"Oh." He stroked the blanket for a few seconds before whipping it around himself and rocking back and forth. This was the worst case of the Confundus Charm I had ever seen. I wondered what else she had 'demonstrated' on him. I walked in front of him, looking down at a man reduced to acting like a toddler. He turned his head up to me, then sprang up and tackled me, blanket and all.

"What do you think you're doing?!" I yelled at him, unable to move under his body.

"Are you cold? This blanket is soft, but mine is softer." He looked at me with his intense eyes. I blushed unintentionally as I looked into his face, then I realized only most of his actions were due to the charm, but were quickly wearing off now. In essence, he had known somewhat what he was doing.

"What are you doing?!" I threw him across the room.

"Ow! What was that for?" he got up, rubbing his head, coming out of his charmed state.

"What do you THINK that was for, idiot!" I got up, fuming, humiliated.

"Really I have no idea, my memory of the last hour is really fuzzy and-" he looked down at my blanket in his hands. "Why am I holding your blanket," he said, sounding worried. "We weren't _doing_ anything, were we?"

"What?" I said, confused.

"I mean, if we were, that's OK., I just..wait! You didn't use one of those Potion things did you? Oh no, YOU DID! AH! I've been taken advantage of! My VIRT-"

"Stop!" he stopped, startled. I walked up to him.

"My sister put a Confunding charm on you, you've been confused and forgetful for the past hour, that's all. Now, give me my blanket and go to bed." I snatched my blanket from his hands, looking murderous. He walked quickly out of my room, looking scared.

It was in the middle of the night when I woke up, realizing what he had meant. Furious, I stormed out of my room, down the hall, and into his room where he jumped out of what was probably a very sound sleep. I cast a silencing charm on whole room.

"YOU'RE SUCH A JERK!" I yelled.

"SH!" he put his hand over my mouth, "You will wake everyone up!" he whispered.

I bit his finger and he yelped. "I'm not stupid, thank you. I sound-proofed the room."

"Oh." He paused, "WHY ARE YOU IN MY ROOM?!"

"DON'T YELL AT ME, I CAME TO YELL AT YOU!"

"WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME?"

"I JUST REALIZED WHAT YOU MEANT EARLIER!"

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

"WHEN YOU WERE WORRIED ABOUT YOUR _**VIRTUE**_."

"WHAT? Oooh! Well, you have to admit," He said laughing at the memory, "I couldn't remember a whole lot, but I did remember being really close to you. On the floor. With a blanket."

"That's all you remember?" I asked doubtfully.

"Of course not. In fact, I remember a lot more now that it's been a while."

"Well then, maybe you can tell me why you would _**even think**_ we would have done something like that?!" I said, my voice growing louder.

"Everything was fuzzy!" he said, growing slightly defensive again which was a relief from his amused smirk.

"I want to know what would possess you to think that I would go along with that." He smiled, stepping closer to me than he already was.

"I saw the way you looked at me," he whispered, so close that I could feel the powerful warmth that always seemed to come from him.

"A-Are you kidding me?" I fumbled for a second, but quickly remembered why I hated him, "I can't stand you." I shoved him away from me and headed out the door.

"So you came to my room in the middle of the night to tell me that?" he said before I could reach the door. I paused before opening the door, turned and raised my wand.

_"Finite Incantatem"_

He stood stalk still, waiting for something to happen.

"I removed all spells in this room." I turned around and opened the door. "It is completely free from any trace of my _human_ presence." I spoke quietly and walked back to my room and went to sleep.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18: Training: Day One**

The next morning I was abruptly woken up by a pillow being thrown at my head.

"What the-? OK, who threw that, I'm going to-"

"I did. Get up. We start our training in ten minutes." All I saw was the back of her as she walked out the door, dressed and ready to go. I looked around, and realized the sun was just coming up and that I was to witness it. Grumbling I pulled on my clothes and went downstairs.

When I found her, she was sitting cross legged on the ground with her journal open in her lap. "Well, are we going to train, or sit and read all day?"

"I'm trying to figure out what to do." She looked up and started laughing uncontrollably.

"What?" I looked down and to my horror, I had on a pink uniform. I could have killed someone right there. "HOW THE-!!!"

"I think I know what happened," she said, and waving her wand, it turned back to normal.

I cleared my throat, utterly humiliated. "We should get started."

"But I don't even have a sword."

"OK, lets start with the basics, it's a Zanpakutou. And we're not using yours today-"

"Are we using those two wooden stick things?" She cut me off with no enthusiasm at all. This was going to be harder than I thought. I'll bet she doesn't know a scrap about fighting. Curse you, Urahara.

After a few hours working with her, she finally got blocking down, but striking was no where near effective. Even if I remained stationary. She started to lose energy, I could tell, her movements were slower than the already slow they were.

"Maybe we should take a break," I said, realizing that neither of us had eaten yet. I looked up at the sky that never changed. It was so hard to tell time in here.

"No!" she caught me in the gut when I wasn't looking.

"Good job, you landed your first blow." I said unenthusiastically, "Even if it was when I wasn't looking."

"I'll get you again if you don't pay attention to me."

"How's it going?" Urahara said, appearing next to us out of nowhere as usual.

"She's...getting there." I sighed.

_Whack._

"Hey!"  
"I told you to pay attention to me! That's two!" she had hit me in the back of the head.

"Yea, out of how many? And I was talking to Urahara." I really just wanted to go back to bed.

"It's OK., Renji, I'll take it from here. You should go eat something." He walked past me.

"Doesn't she need to eat too?"

"She will be along in a few minutes, I just need to check something."

"I am standing right here, I also make decisions for myself, I'm a big girl now you know."

"My apologies, young lady!" Urahara bowed low. "May I release your soul, I need to make sure you are healing."

She hesitated. "I..I guess." I walked away, ready for some breakfast. I wondered if anyone was up and had made some already, that would be nice. Then, maybe no one would notice if I took a nap and try waking up again with out an angry, crazy human throwing things at me. Just then, a strange reiatsu stopped me in my tracks. It felt sugar sweet and lemon sour at the same time. It was the oddest sensation I had ever felt, but it was definitely reiatsu. I ran back to where they had been to see Andrea's Hollow once again. This time she was not wildly destroying everything, she was just standing next to Andrea.

Thoughts of breaking that stupid cane of his crossed my mind. He could have at least warned me first, in stead of just poking me in the head with it. The feeling of my Hollow sliding out of my body was the weirdest feeling and not very pleasant. I stood there with my arms folded, wanting for this to end. I felt uncomfortable with my Hollow just standing there with a twisted replica of my body on display.

"That's what I thought, although your chain is interesting." He was referring to the hollow bone woven through the links on my soul chain. We looked at each other skeptically. "Soon you will be able to bring her out in your fighting, when you agree and work as a team. For now, you need time to work with each other. You just need to remember that you are both part of a whole. Without one, there cannot exist the other. You're not like a normal Hollow, and you're not like a normal Soul Reaper. You are able to bond with each other and become much more powerful." he took out a glove and handed it to me. "You need to spend at least an hour a day with her, to do this, put the glove on and simply pull her out."

My Hollow stretched and yawned loudly. "I'm not ready to be awake yet. I'm going back to sleep." She slid back into me with an odd pressure, I wanted to throw up.

"That lazy brat. Are we done now?" I asked angrily.

"Yep. Remember, at least an hour."

"Yea, yea. I'm going to go get some breakfast. Then wake her up again."

She was off and gone before I could even take another step. I turned to Urahara who was starting to walk in the same direction.

"What was with that reiatsu?"

"I assume that's the reiatsu of a person with the ability to bond with their Hollow. Interesting how it almost has a smell to it."

"It's the best smell in the world," I couldn't stop myself from saying, staring after her in a daze.

"Or it could be the reiatsu of a Witch Soul Reaper, it's hard to tell since her and her cousin are the only Witch Soul Reapers."

"Her cousin?"

"Wendy."

"I thought they were sisters."

"They refer to each other as sisters, but they're cousins." He started to walk back to the stairs again, "Good luck with that, by the way," he said with his back to me.

"What?" I asked, walking with him.

"Please, I'm busy, but I'm not blind. I can see it written all over your face."

"She drives me crazy," I said, horrified that I was having this conversation with Urahara of all people.

"First of all, the fact that your mind jumped that quickly to what I was referring to proves it. Second, she's not like a normal human you know."

"I know. I understand that now," I said solemnly, remembering the night before.

"We seem to have a whole stew of them around here."

"Yea, we do, this crazy town."

"Well, I am putting you in charge of her. I have my hands tied."

"What? Why me?! I've got other things to do! Why can't she take care of herself."

He stopped and I ran into him.

"Listen Renji, she is alone. She doesn't have any idea what's going on and your whole world is completely new to her. She is a human with only one family member. It's a lonely place and she will need a good teacher to look up to. Someone she can depend on. I am not going to make her do this on her own."

"But why me?"

"Why do I even speak?" He sighed. "You brought her, you can take care of her," he disappeared before I could protest.


End file.
